


Educational Errors

by apprenticenanoswarm



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-01-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:54:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22112935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apprenticenanoswarm/pseuds/apprenticenanoswarm
Summary: In the wake of the arm-wrestling incident, the Mandalorian attempts a scolding.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 186





	Educational Errors

“What you did was dishonorable.”

The child’s big black eyes narrowed. Then; a giggle.

“Dishonorable. Dis-on-or-ay-bill. It means ‘bad’. You did a bad thing. That doesn’t mean that you’re bad. Good and bad are things we do, not what we are,” he said, parroting the words of the Mandalorian tutor who’d caught him biting another student. 

“Oo-gweh?” said the child. 

“You’re kidding.”

He looked up and found Cara smirking down at him and the infant in his lap. Fuck - hadn’t even heard her come in. Sloppy.

“It’s a baby,” she said, crouching down and tickling a long green ear. “Doesn’t understand a word you’re saying.”

“You don’t know that. I don’t know that. He’s fifty with the proportions of a one-year-old human. That’s all we’ve got to work with. Sure, he can’t understand most of what we say, and that might mean his species only starts talking at age one hundred. It might just as easily mean that he was taken from his people before he could learn and he’s missed all his developmental milestones due to trauma. Maybe he was meant to start talking at age twenty. Until I know more, I’m gonna give him all the opportunities for learning he might have missed.”  


It was, for him, a lengthy oration, and by the end of it his tongue felt strange, not used to so much exercise. 

She scratched her neck, where a ring of bruises had blossomed. “May I make a suggestion?”

Setting the child on the floor, she lay down opposite, her arms folded in front of her. 

“Hi, buddy,” she said, gently pressing a finger against the child’s tiny nose and earning a coo in response. “You wanna play a game?”

As he watched, she offered her index finger. The child blinked, curious, then wrapped its small hand around the tip.

“That’s what he does with the joystick,” Din contributed, fascinated to see where she was going with this.

Humming, Cara wiggled her finger. After a couple of seconds, she gently pushed the child’s hand down against the floor. Then she smiled broadly, sat up and clapped her hands. “Yay! I win! Let’s play again!”

It took the little womp rat two more tries to figure out how to play the game. When he finally got it, he released a stream of excited babble and pushed Cara’s finger down onto the floor with a happy trill.

“See, I figure that before a person learns the difference between ‘good’ and ‘bad’, they need to learn the difference between playing and real life,” said Cara, as the baby mimicked her earlier applause. “That’s what the problem was. The kid thought you were in real danger. Just wanted to protect you.”

Din extended his finger and had his own miniature wrestling match, allowing the child to win after a ten-second struggle. “Huh. That’s...thanks.”

“No problem.”

“How’s your neck?”

“S’alright.”

“Good. Good. Glad to hear it.”


End file.
